S.M.Singru
When Railways were constructed in Britain during the nineteenth century, Kings Cross station in London was one of the most imposing structures, which came up. The land for this building was purchased from private landowners at the market price, which ruled at that time. The legal agreement for this deal had many elaborate clauses, which were soon buried in time, & everyone forgot about them. One clause in fine print was that, in the event that the British Railways or their legal successors decided to resell this land in future, the original owners (or their legal heirs) would get a further compensation which would be worked on the basis of the difference in land price at the current moment and the original price. This clause was all but forgotten till Railtrack, a public limited company who took over the assets of British Rail in the 1990s, decided to sell the construction rights to a consortium of companies who won the contract for developing Kings Cross into a modern international terminus, to be connected to Paris through the channel tunnel link. During the finalisation of the deal, a meticulous legal assistant examined the old nineteenth century agreement through a magnifying lens and blurted out his discovery of the clause. The result is that the heirs of the original landowners are to get huge amounts of money from Railtrack. They have formed an action group for enforcing the legal settlement. Rumour is that their group meets in pubs, and grand plans are afoot for spending the fortune, when they lay their hands on it.
But the grinding of the
mills of law does not have a pleasant effect for some, as a former Chief of
Scotland Yard recently discovered. He is to be prosecuted soon because in 2000,
he led a team of police commandos in a raid against terrorists hiding in a
London building. Nothing illegal in that except that, for maximum effect and
for springing a surprise on the terrorists, he and his team burst into the
terrorist hideout through the roof. The problem, as it now transpires, is that
there is a Safety Act in Britain, which makes it a punishable offence to enter
buildings through the roof. And there is no dispensation for the guardians of
law, either. So the former Chief has to stand trial at the Old Bailey and take
the punishment.
The mills of law grind slow, but they sure
grind fine.
Copyright smsingru, May 2002